Happy New Year!

Happ New Year Everybody!

A blackberry-scented candle that I got from my dad this christmas, perfect for this evening!

Hope you have a great New Year's Eve whether you're celebrating with friends, family or working tonight.

Our housecat, Simba, enjoying new year's eve from his cliff

Me I'm working early this weekend, so I celebrate with a nice dinner with my boyfriend -crab and crayfish! Y U M M Y! A luxurious new year's meal I think. :)

 

And champagne for my man and some 2012 sparkling water for me. ;)

Bonne Année!

A Paris!

So I'm back in Paris after 12 good days of vacation... I've had a lovely time with friends and family. It was just wonderful to sit down with friends at a café; I really enjoyed every second of it.

Let's take a look at some moments from this afternoon.

I surprised my boyfriend with some pretty flowers on my way back home.

When I got home this light chain was up and giving a blue and cosy light. Perfect for keeping the christmas spirit a little bit longer.

It does twinkle, but slowly, slowly...

Et voici... the flowers! Does anyone know what type of flowers these are? I have no idea, but they look summery nice and wild.

And now a still life including the new bouquet:

I got the little table cloth from my mum. She's has made the embroidery and I love the little santas made of yarn. I think they're adorable.

naaw :)

I bought these matches on my vacation: "We are a perfect match!" It was a nice surprise that they were long and with marshmallow-white tips!

Cherry blossom is spreading its light tonight -a beautiful christmas gift from my mum.

Puff Puff Puff out the light...

Yesterday I bought a Burda magazine when I was doing some grocery shopping. I was thinking I need a new pattern (or two) to get inspired to sew something nice. It's a good way to make the grocery shopping more pleasant as well. ;) And today when I got home the new issue of Marie Claire idées had arrived. Lovely. Seems like I will have a very busy weekend (I got a lot of exciting pocket books as a christmas gift as well).

What are you reading during your holidays?

Bisou!

Christmas Time!

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, but I've been out of internet. :(

I'm  posting you a text I wrote last week...:

The city is now beautifully decorated with glitzening twinkling lights. Around Montmartre it looks like this for example.

The star that you see really twinkles.

And “Hotel Terass” at this corner has some impressive Christmas trees, very inviting and cosy. 

On rue Lepic you have light chains above your head  all the way down.

On one of the crossing street I saw this, a bit more traditional, decoration.

I’ve had a quick peek of the Christmas decoration at galleries Lafayette when I passed by in a taxi the other night. But I need to go back and have a proper look at it. And take some pictures for you of course.

At Champs-Elysées they’ve put up large circle formed paillettes in silver hanging from the trees. This is a very efficient way of creating shimmer and light without any actual lamps.

In our building the Christmas decoration is here as well. Santa has arrived with a proper load of Christmas gifts that he has stacked in a corner. It was a pleasant surprise when I got home from work the other day. Christmas is here! And I’m so excited about going home and visit my family and friends. Oh how I will enjoy my Christmas holidays!

Bisou!

Coffee

Oh how coffee is the drink of life sometimes. It can cheer you up when you’re feeling a bit down. It can give you that extra boost of energy that you might need to get going or start working. It can be a great way to gather over a warm cup and talk with someone to get closer to that person, open up over something warm and tasty.

It’s a pleasant way to finish a great meal. When you’re crazy full the coffee can sort of help the digestion and you feel lighter and get your energy back, especially when combined with a delicious ice cream ball of Italian "gelato".  Mmm…

Latte Macchiato at Amorino...

The coffee can also be the dessert all on its own. When it’s filled with vanilla essence or a choco-mocha-frappo-suggery-marchmallow-puffy-duffy-latte at Starbucks for example, the coffee is sweet enough as it is to be enjoyed as a dessert with no cupcake or muffin on the side needed.

Sometimes you can long for a regular coffee that tastes like home. No extras. No fuzz. Just proper coffee with a hint of milk from the fridge (which is exactly what I am zipping on in this moment).

Me I don’t drink a lot of coffee. But when I do I enjoy it. To me that’s important. I don’t want it to be something that I drink in a hurry or something that I get an enormous headache from if I end up without. I want it to be something good in life, something to enjoy and appreciate.

Tomorrow I think I’m going to have a good Parisian Café Crème with my friend, at least that’s what I am looking forward to now coffee-wise.

How do you want your coffee, and how do you drink it? 

Bisou!

créations et savoir-faire

Today was the last day (luckily I got to think of this fair yesterday!) of the craft-fair "Créations et savoir-faire" at Porte de Versailles. I jumped into my clothes, took my boyfriend under my arm, got us some coffe and a crepe on the way and got on the metro with happy feet.

Haven't even seen this movie but this is happy feet. (:

I was quite excited about this fair to say the least. And man was it big! Larger than I thought actually. This was a great plus of course. The minus might be that there were a lot of the same or similar things. A lot of scrapbooking (which I'm not into) and embroidery (neither). There were however things that I appreciated as well, fabrics! some pastery sections and jewellery which is always nice to look at, lots of pretty pearls and macaron-shaped earrings etc.

Over all it was a nice fair. I did miss some "free samples", I figured there would at least be a free magazine or something. It was a bit crowded, but no queues. I would have liked if they included stuff like soap-making, candle-making and creative cakes as well, to broaden it even more.

There were a lot of fabric suited for patchwork. I bought two pieces, however I'm not going to use them for this but for a pillow case that will be nicely placed on the sofa. After all they are 45 x 55 cm, so it should work. I'll show you when I've got the right inner pillow for it. Or maybe I shall just buy cotton and do it myself from scratch so to say...

There was definatley a great variety of fabrics. Some suiting for a vintage 50's look, romantic countryside flowers or stronger bold colours.

You also had book shops specialized in "do-it-yourself" and creative hobbies represented.

Cute stuff the japanese way for example...

Installations and workshops were also a part of the fair. You would have to pay extra to participate in a workshop though. It was fun to just look at it a bit, however it was one project that seemed quite fun, painting on a glass plate. The thing was: you painted on the back of the plate and then when you turned it around it looked really pretty. I want to do that sometime! Unfortunately, now that I think about it, I never took a picture of it. - Oh well!

Everyone got to contribute to this "painting" with the help of some pretty tape. There were lots of different patterns and colours. And as you can see some people really put their heart into it (see the face down in the left corner).

A lot of people as you can see here.

Some inspiration for christmas as well. Oh how I would love to go to a christmas fair. But soon all the christmas markets in Paris starts, actually the one on Champs-Elysées has allready begun, so I read yesterday. Apparently it started this weekend. I went to it last year and it was wonderful, so surely I'm gonna go again, and I'll show you of course. There are also other christmas markets in other parts of town, I was thinking I'm gonna write about all of the markets that I wisit. Would be a nice project. :)

This was one of my favourite market stall. Can you see why? Here I (after some thinking and figuring and considering) bought something that will (hopefully) improve my macarons. It's a silicone (I think) plate that you use instead of the regular baking paper. Next time I make macarons you will see.

Saw many hi-tech sewing machines on the fair as well. So if you are thinking of buying yourself an advanced machine that can make some impressive embroidery this might just be the place.

After about 2,5 hours at the "Créations et Savoir-faire" I felt satisfied and we went home. On or way back home we bought a nice bouquet of intense blue flowers to put in our blue kettle. After all it was fresh flower's friday two days ago!

I understand that the reason the colour is so intense is because they have been dyed. I got this confirmed when my boyfriend's fingers had some blue stains after cutting the flowers down a bit and trimming of some of the leaves.

We offered ourselves some cheese and crackers after our intense day! ;)

Bisou!

Trouville sur mer

The 11th of November my boyfriend and I went for a weekend at the seaside: Trouville and Deauville. Only 2 h and 15 minutes away from Paris with the train.

We got lucky with wonderful sunny weather, could even drop my jacket for a while during our walk on saturday.

I felt so calm and happy to see the ocean and walk on the beach. The beach of Trouville was beautiful.

The saturday was spent walking on the beach and in the city. We had some crepes for lunch and baught a couple of pasteries to bring back home to the hotel room. The hotel we stayed at was a small ** hotel right near the ocean.

Here is a photo of the view from our hotel room, green and nice!

This is how happy I was to be on a weekend in Trouville!

Up Up and awaaaay!

We also had a look at the amazing fish market. So many delicious-looking sea fruits - Oh my Gosh!

Such variety and everything was presented in a way that made you drool...

The market was busy and I can easily understand why, Oh my, if I lived there I would go every week.

A nice cool smoke surrounded some of the tables.

We had amzing dinners all of our days in Trouville - Deauville. Clams, big shrimps, fish soup and even half a lobster on sunday, Yum!!

A great way to end the mini-vacation.

Before taking the train back home to Paris we sat down in a bar to write some post cards and have a beer and a cappuccino in my case.

I definately want to go to Trouville again. It was cosy, offered great restaurants for seafoodlovers like myself and it was not too expensive or far to get there from Paris.

I really really recommend it!

Bisou!

Sweeth Tooth/La dent sucrée

The other evening when I was in the mood for something sweet after dinner, I went for a real but somehow forgotten (at least to me) classic. Hot Chocolate.

I used milk, cacao powder, sugar and cinnamon powder for my hot chocolate. And I was generous with the cinnamon!

And next it was time to whip, whip, whip!

I have some gingerbread at home, that I really thought I was gonna save, at least until it's december. But when I saw the little package of gingerbread and I had my chocolate ready I could not resist. Would be a way too good combination to miss out on. Am I right?

All shiny -and there's no retouche!

Bisou!